Sunday, January 29, 2012

Tagged by Kate: 11, 11, 11.

I was tagged by kate. I never know who I might be tagging in return so I tag you all. For instructions, check out the post on Kate's blog.

11 random things about myself

1. I notice, but have trained myself not to be influenced by, the cracks and lines in the ground, floor, or wherever it is I am walking. But I see them. Oh, how I see them.

2. I smoked for fifteen years. I quit 16 years ago when I realized I was using my asthma inhaler so that I could breathe deeply enough to smoke my benson and hedges. How stupid is that? So I put the pack down and never smoked again.

3. I will never have the striking white hair that I so admire in many women. My mother was only about 10% gray by age 60 and so far, at age 46, i have about 20 gray hairs.

4. I was, in my twenties, a hard core born again Christian. I participated in book and CD burnings, saw the evil in nearly everything, and refused to acknowledge Halloween for about four years. I thought "He-man" was Satanic. Then I got over myself. Life is far, far too short to be passionate about anything other than social justice.

5. I love nearly every kind of food, but I hate, I cannot abide, water chestnuts. They just little disks of creepiness. I also hate creamed corn. Ew. I don't like most canned vegetables. They're mushy.

6. I wish I had gone to medical school and studied psychiatry.

7. I have a yearning, and have for a while now, to study American Sign Language. It's in my bucket list, after I graduate.

8. I think one of the reasons I like runners so much is that most of them are pretty smart, and all of them are motivated. I simply cannot abide dimwitted, lazy people who complain ceaselessly about their lot in life and then do nothing about it.

9. I want everyone to be happy. It genuinely distresses me to see suffering. I also want everyone to be in love, with something, or someone, that gives them joy. For this reason, I prefer movies with happy endings.

10. I am extremely uncomfortable in crowds.

11. I have a giant head. I know this, though I can't see it. I have taken to wearing my hair like this video because it's a great, lazy, post workout hairdo. But no matter what headbands I have tried they feel like a band of steel and I have a headache by 8 am. I have taken to hanging a weight from them for a few days to stretch them out.

_____________________________

Kate's questions to me:

1. Did you have a favorite teacher in school? Who and why?

I had a favorite teacher in college. I admired, and later copied, his conversational style of teaching. He was my college chemistry teacher.

I drive a Honda Fit. I adore it. It's cheap, practical, well-made, and cute. *like me* I totaled my first one and wrote about it here, and immediately replaced it with another one aftering performing last rites.

I feel cool and bad in my Fit, For some inexplicable reason. Not jammin' hamsters bad, but bad.

5. What do you imagine doing when you retire?

Traveling to warm places in winter and cold places in summer.

6. Tell me a happy memory of yours.

In 1991, I was poor, pregnant, and on welfare when I was told by the US government that they were basically paying for my Bachelor's degree. It has resulted humble, overeducated idiot you see today. I will always argue strenuously for education access for everyone in this country, undocumented or not. It is the great equalizer, and gives you morer return for your tax dollars than building walls and arming derigibles with cameras.

7. What's something that has surprised you about yourself?

That I could be a runner. I never was. I was stocky and not at all athletic. I was smart. I was not physical.

8. Do you have brothers or sisters? If so, are you close to them?

I have one older sister. We are not very close. This is her choice, though she's real sweet about it. I have offered to fly her put here from Alabama. She has turned me down so many times I no longer ask. (I think she is frightened of people of color, foreign accents, and liberals.) I chose the location of my first Ironman because of where she lives, but not only was she not interested, she didn't track me and didn't respond to my email that "I'm doing an ironman tomorrow!" until days afterwards, when she absent mindedly wished me luck. I have moved on with my life. One has to surround oneself with people who support and admire you but still call you on your shit, and that you admire back. And I have.

9. Patrick assures me he'd come rescue me if I ever again got lost in the woods. Can I count on him?

Is there something that you can carry in your pocket that he is guaranteed to want to come looking for? Like raw meat?

10. What's something you like to make for dinner?

Pot roast. Sweet potato fries. Asparagus.

11. What's a good piece of advice you've received.

Now about this: if it's not illegal, and it's not immoral, and it's not unethical, and it's not fattenening, and it won't hurt anyone, and you just might learn something from it, why not do it?

_____________________________

Here are my questions. I tag you all. Muwah.

1. What is the love of your life?

2. Who is the love of your life?

3. Why do you run?

4. Why aren't you running right now?

5. Are you being the world you wish to see?

6. Are you living the words you speak?

7. is there anything, right now, that you wish you could do but have been afraid to try?

5 comments:

The thing I was always afraid to try was running. I PR'd my 5k yesterday, so today is a rest day.

And I am ashamed to admit to my Michael W Smith phase when I threw away any secular music and went a little overboard myself. I think because I missed the fun teen years of Halloween, I am making up for it now.

Love your #1. I haven't evolved as far as you have, and I still watch how I step because of the lines. In fact, when I'm walking there are a certain number of footsteps that have to go in each box of the sidewalk. Thankfully, it's not an issue when I'm running because I'm too busy trying not to die. I also have issues with the egg carton and have to make sure I take them out in a balanced way. I thought I was alone in this until reading a post from Wait in the Van.

I changed from going to a Catholic church to a non-denominational, kind of born-again/saved type of non-denominational church. Wonderful, wonderful people and messages, but I don't know that I'll ever be so sure about anything as they are.

The good people of the state of Illinois both paid for most of my college education as well as my kids' medical care and day care while I went to school. While I'll never be excited about paying my taxes, I AM grateful that now I'm able to do my part instead of receiving, and I still believe that as a country we'll be far better off by trying to lift people up rather than tell them it's their fault they're down.

Dear Diary, A rep from Free Country wrote me and offered to send me a swim suit if I would review it for my blog. Say it with me now: ...

It's never too late to be what you might have been. --George Eliot

Athena is the Goddess of wisdom and war. In 2005, I declared war on my own bad tendencies: sloth, being fat, compacency, and being too old for adventure. This is the story of how I went from being someone who never stood when she could sit, to being an ultrarunner, marathoner, and triathlete. Along the way I've cried, laughed, fallen, gotten up, lost, won, hallucinated, been dehydrated, DNF'ed, and been DFL. I also swear. Alot.
"You're never too old to be what you might have been" --George Eliot

3rd Year In Row

Advice and Information

Longest distance on foot.

In less than 1 day.

First Marathon Thoughts...

I looked at my feet. They didn't look any different. They just looked like my feet. So did my legs. I had this idea that when you finished something like this, you'd look different--your legs would look like the legs of a runner, all ropy and muscley. But I still looked like me. I just didn't feel like me. 1.14.7

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